Out Like a Light
by boomerangs
Summary: Okay. The truth—the God's honest truth: I'm not a murder, and I'm definitely not a cannibal. At least I wasn't, until they shipped me off to prison for something I didn't do. So, in a sense, this? All this? This was all to prove my innocence. All I wanted was for somebody to listen. You believe me—right? Right?
1. Prologue

My talents include sleeping, rising from the dead, and pretending to be a fearless, manly warrior even when I'm actually scared out of my mind. Those probably don't qualify as "real" talents, but that's basically all I'm good at—except for making snide remarks at the most inopportune moments. I'm great at that.

See, I had the luxury (and by luxury I mean burden) of being a twin. While most people think twins act pretty much the same, my twin and I couldn't be more different. And I think you should know, right off the bat, that I'm not the smart twin. No, that would be Nashiro, the one who's off on a big scholarship researching a cure for cancer, polio, and global warming. Meanwhile I'm stuck at home, forced to read shoujou manga to my little sister all day, all because I was born with a sense of humor instead of brains. Thanks, Mom.

He'd be winning the Nobel Peace Prize, while I'd live up to my name as the family disappointment and get myself thrown in prison. Don't get me wrong, I'm not just a petty criminal (even though I am a petty criminal). I was thrown into a depraved hellhole of sadism and murder games because—drumroll, please—I was framed.

Can't believe it? Me either.

It's hard to think about anyone framing someone as soft-hearted as me, but it happened. And ever since I've been on death row at DMWL, I feel like I'm on one of those wilderness survival shows, except I'm underground and instead of animals chasing me I've got psychopaths on my tail every second.

Normally I would say something like, "That sounds like fun!" but I know firsthand how terrifying this stuff actually is.

Hopefully I survive with all my limbs in tact. If not, I'll just settle for surviving.

Welcome to Wonderland

\- Kashia


	2. Chapter 1

In case you missed it, I'll remind you that my only three viable talents were: 1) Sleeping 2) Rising from the dead, and 3) Pretending to be a fearless, manly warrior when I am, in fact, scared shitless.

Well, four, if you count my ability to make cunning remarks at the most inopportune moments.

Now that we've established that, I think it's safe to say we should scratch sleeping off the list. I can't even sleep properly. Pathetic, I know.

Have you ever bolted out of sleep for no reason? An old urban legend says that's what happens when an alternate universe version of you dies, and if I didn't know any better I would believe it. The real reason for why I suddenly jerked up out of sleep was because my lungs abruptly decided that they weren't cooperating with me anymore.

In the past week alone I'd already had seven mini asthma attacks, which, for me, was a miracle. In general, the attacks lasted about two minutes each, and if I was lucky, my lungs would stop seizing in as little as thirty seconds. For someone with normal lungs, that probably sounds brutal, but I preferred those little chest-constrictions to what I normally experienced. My usual asthma attacks were few and far between, but they were much more severe and brutally traumatic. Sometimes they lasted for hours, sometimes days. And while the mini-attacks were nice, my typical monster of an asthma attack was long overdue, so I knew my luck would eventually run out. Which is why I wasn't surprised when I when I woke up at 2 in the morning in a cold sweat, my diaphram flattening as if an invisible sumo wrestler was sitting on top of it.

Blindly, I grabbed my inhaler from beneath my pillow and gave a long-winded spray into my throat.  
The good news is that it made the muscles around my airways relax.  
The bad news is that they only relaxed for a second.

That's when I started to panic, just a little.

My eyes tore open and the only thing I could hear was my heart pounding in my ears. My vision was getting spotty, my lungs were seizing, and I had one hell of a headache, but not from the oxygen deficiency. I was sleeping on the top bunk of my bed, and when I veered forward my forehead collided with the low-hanging ceiling.

I fell back onto my pillow, holding my swelling forehead and fighting the urge to scream. I fought it for about 5 seconds, before I shouted the F-word so loudly that I could practically hear my neighbors judging me for my swearing habits.

I groaned, swinging my feet over the edge and hopping down from the bed. My brother's bed was directly beneath mine, which was empty and covered in clothes my dirty laundry. The longer I stared at the bed the more I could visualize him sitting upright, rubbing his bluish-green eyes and glaring at me, giving me the standard why-did-you-wake-me-at-2-in-the-morning look.

See, I have this weird habit of picturing scenarios in my head and acting them out. Most of the time my daydreams involve the girls I fantasize about, but other times they involve my brother—and no, not in a nasty, twincest kind of way. I did it because he'd been gone for about two years now, and I was trying not to forget his personality or lose sight of our relationship. So that's a little creepy, huh? Fair enough.

I stood in the middle of the floor, clutching my chest and looking over at our bunks. In my head, I was kneeling beside his bed, grinning insincerely. "Didn't realize I woke you."

"I think you woke the whole neighborhood," He said sharply, and was about to lie down and pull the blanket over his head when he gave me a puzzled look. "Why are you wet?"

I snapped out of my daydream. Looking down at my clothes, I saw that my T-shirt was sticking to my skin, clammy and cold. Imaginary Nashiro had a point—my clothes were damp. I hadn't realized it; I was too focused on my asthma attack and my inflating forehead, but I did notice the room felt 30 degrees cooler and now I knew why.

Reminding myself that I was currently suffocating, I stumbled into the hallway, my body weak from the lack of oxygen. Consciousness slipped away from me and my vision got spotty, but I fought it, supporting myself against the cold wooden-panelled walls.

The worst part about living in a mansion is always feeling like someone's stalking you from the shadows of the hallways, or under the staircase, or in the attic. And I'm usually the tough one in my family, but I have to admit, roaming the pitch black halls at night can be seriously unnerving. The walls seemed to stretch on forever as I staggered about tiredly.

At the end of the hall the floorboards creaked under someone's weight. I froze, expecting to hear footsteps, but the only sound I heard was my loud wheezing and speedy heart rate. After a few seconds of waiting cautiously, I continued down the hallway, running my hand along the wall in hopes of finding a light switch—and quickly. I thought I heard someone's light breathing, but I convinced myself it was my imagination.  
But just to be safe, I called out into the darkness, "Hey, Nako, is that you?"

Nako, my little sister, is known for playing terrifying little pranks on me, so I was expecting her to be standing at the end of the hall with a Halloween mask on, ready to scare the soul out of me. She'd done it before.

"This isn't funny, Nako!" I yelled, cursing under my breath. The breathing grew louder as I inched closer, and it sounded a lot more like someone saying "Ksh," repeatedly than actual breathing, kind of like a low chuckle.

"Nako if I attack you it won't be my fault this time—"

The lights flashed on, almost giving me a heart attack. Startled, I began backing away but tripped over my own two feet and landed firmly on my ass. I was blinded for a few moments, using my hands to shade my eyes. I swore that I heard soft laughter.

When my vision adjusted my eyes nearly popped out of my skull. It couldn't be one of Nako's plots this time, because she was a cute little 6-year-old with olive skin and curly dark brown hair—she was barely over 3 feet tall. The figure that stood before me was a bit taller than me, wearing bloody, rusty red and silver armor that was scratched and dented like whoever was wearing it had gotten into a really nasty fight. A pale mouth was exposed from the superhero-styled iron red helmet, and it wore an amused smile that turned my blood to ice water.

The shock caused my asthma to flare up even more, but I managed to calm it by sucking down the entire contents of my inhaler in one drag. I rubbed my eyes, just to make sure what I saw was actually there and not the hallucinative aftereffects of large doses of corticosteroids. But no, I closed my eyes, counted to 3, took several deep breaths, and it was still there.

I stared at it, and it stared back at me, keeping its crooked smile. I stood up and decided to do what any sane person would—talk to it.  
I know what you're thinking: Don't talk to it, run, dumbass. But it was blocking the staircase, and I was out of options.

"Are you a ghost or something?"

Its psycho smile widened enough to bear teeth, and then it tossed something at me. Instinctively I caught it, but I dropped it immediately when I realized what it was.

It was a hand. A bloody, mutilated severed hand. And not just any hand—it was Sakae's.

Even though it was pretty much a disfigured wad of flesh and bone, there was enough pale skin left for me to see pieces of a colorful flower tattoo that once covered the knuckles.

It belonged to my step-mom, Sakae, who married my dad after my mother died in a massive earthquake in Tokyo. I looked down at the hand, staining the carpet as it leaked dark red blood.

My thoughts at this point: _Uh-oh_.

I looked back to the figure that started moving closer. Okay, this is when I had to admit that I was scared. No, more than that. I was petrified. It extended a hand in my direction, and that's when I think I peed myself.

"D-dad!" I bolted down the hall, screaming for my father. Now that the lights were on I noticed the blood spatters covering the wall, and the immense pool of red liquid that seeped out from under my dad's bedroom. I slowed to a stop, the strong metallic scent of fresh blood filling my nose. If Sakae's hand looked like it was just raw meat, it made my stomach churn to think about what the rest of her body looked like. I reached my hand toward the doorknob, but I was hesitant. I wasn't sure I wanted to see what was on the other side of that door, so I pulled my hand away and forced myself to keep running. Then I froze. I thought about Nako. I looked back, and the armored person was slowly moving toward me, floating about a foot or so off the floor. I could never make it to Nako's bedroom with that thing in the way. So I continued running.

Sure, it was a cowardly move, but I clearly stated before that I only _pretended_ to be brave. There was no one around for me to put on a brave face for, so I ran screaming and crying, like any normal human being would.

I burst through the door to my bedroom, looking around frantically. I eyed the phone that was stationed on the nightstand, but I also eyed the window at the back of the room. I stood motionless for a few quiet seconds. The age-old question that actors in horror movies always find themselves facing popped into my head: Should I call for help or should I run?

I didn't have time to decide. The light cast a shadow on the floor beneath my feet and I made a split-second decision. I grabbed the phone and pried open the window, swinging one leg outside. It was at this point that I remembered I was on the third floor, but I supposed falling to my death would have been better than being hacked to pieces.

I wasn't very religious—not religious at all—but I mumbled a quick prayer to whatever strange force in the universe had kept me safe for this long. Before I could get my other leg out, there was a loud crash that nearly deafened me. The wall beside the window exploded, splintering into debris and leaving a hole the size of a monster truck tire. I fell back inside, startled by the sudden attack.

For a few seconds I lost consciousness. My right ear was filled with a high-pitched ringing noise, and my arm felt like it was on fire. Something warm was draining down my chest, and I didn't need to open my eyes to know what it was.

Blood.

Forcing myself to open my eyes, I inspected the damage. A chunk was missing out of my arm and I could see the bone peeking out from underneath layers of muscle. Once again, I freaked out. I tried screaming, but my vocal cords had gone on strike. I was having trouble inhaling. My lungs just had to go on strike at a time like this.

It's a good thing breathing wasn't on my list of talents.

The figure stood over me, purple hexagonal shapes encircling its body. Its hand glowed red, but I was more worried about why it was still laughing. I was wheezing and holding my mangled arm, when I heard myself say, "Not the face."

Allow me to present my third talent, ladies and gentlemen: Being a smartass and the worst possible time.

But oh well, I guess it's important to have a sense of humor, even when you're about to die at the hands of a smiling costumed madman.

The last thing I felt was a strange tugging sensation in my gut as I hit the carpeted floor. I could see the pale lips moving, but I couldn't hear a word that came from its mouth. It shot me one last grin and I was out like a light.


	3. Chapter 2

First things first: I did not burn the hospital I was treated at in an attempt to escape police custody. Sure, I may have torched a couple of operating rooms, but that was it. Most of the building is still standing. A little smoky, but still standing. And as far as the rooms that did burn, well, you'd believe me if I said it was an accident, right? Because that's what it was. I only wanted a distraction so I could free my bound limbs. All I know is one minute I was being wrongly arrested for the murder of my entire household, and the next minute I was burning a bottle of chemicals using a lighter that I pickpocketed from a police officer.

Most people would argue that it isn't a good idea to set off an explosion in a hospital, but I'm the act-now-think-later type. For once, I wish I had thought ahead. As I held the lighter to the tip of the bottle, I kept prodding it until I saw smoke, and before I could snuff out the flame, the bottle caught fire. For a while, all that could be heard was the hiss of the melting plastic. Then the bottle went ' _boom_ '.

I just _had_ to ignite a bottle of ethyl ether, didn't I. A nice alcohol-based cleaning product would have done the job nicely, but no, no. I just _had_ to use the most volatile substance I could find.

Good job, Kashia.

The flames quickly spread throughout the room, which conveniently happened to be filled with flammable objects and liquids. The officers were caught by surprise, and if it had been another, less threatening situation, I would have said that the looks on their faces were priceless. In truth, we were in a burning room, which is nothing short of terrifying, so the police's facial expressions were the least of my worries. But then there's this tiny part of me, the part that almost guarantees my safe passage to hell, that thinks, _Come on, that was hilarious._

Once the heat hit the ceiling the fire alarm went off and everything burst into chaos. The officers quickly forgot to arrest me and scurried away, fearful for their lives. I was relieved that they wouldn't be detaining me anymore, but I wasn't so thrilled about the fact that they'd left me tied to a hospital bed in a burning room.

How did all this start? I'm glad you asked.

• • •

I didn't get any better at sleeping. I know, I know, sleeping is supposed to be one of my alleged "talents", but before you judge me for being a terrible sleeper, I think it's safe to say that this time it didn't count. It's a little hard to continue with your peaceful slumber when your airways abruptly start to constrict and you start wheezing like an old car trying to start up it's engine.

I shot upright, maybe a bit too fast because my head immediately exploded with pain. Goosebumps rippled over my skin, and along with the bone-splitting headache, I was rewarded with the coppery taste of blood in my mouth. I gasped and tried wrenching open my eyes to survey my surroundings. Big mistake. The unfamiliar room was insanely bright, causing another wave of pain to radiate through my skull. Instinctively, I tried to raise my palms to my eye sockets to shield my eyes, but I couldn't move my arms. I looked down to find that one of my arms was bandaged and in a sling, and the other was strapped to the metal railing of the bed by the wrist. So I did what every other disoriented medical patient does when they find out their limbs had been restrained. I threw a tantrum.

Panicked, I violently pulled at the restraint, but it wouldn't budge. All I was doing was making the leather cut into my skin. It stretched a bit, but wouldn't snap. I didn't have any more strength because I was ready to pass out. My lungs were still having a fit because they couldn't get any air, and I was starting to lose control of my convulsing limbs, all of which were fastened to the bed. I thought hospital staff only restrained dangerous people, and here I was having a cross between an asthma attack and a seizure, so the most dangerous thing I was capable of doing was vibrating really hard.

Someone must have heard the elongated choking sound of me trying to bite off my leather restraints, because a woman in white scrubs came running in and attempted to appease me. She was fairly attractive, with short black hair and blue eyes, and all I could think about was how I probably resembled a confused, suffocating sea lion with saliva draining down its chin.

How attractive.

Pretty soon a party of people wearing white rushed in—and it may have been the drugs in my system, but for a moment I thought they were angels and they were coming to escort me to heaven. But then one of them stuck a syringe in my chest. Last time I checked, angels didn't stab you with syringes.  
I put two and two together and discovered I was in a hospital.

That made a lot more sense.  
The chances of me getting into heaven were slim.

After I was injected with several sedatives, my seizing lungs started to relax and I felt woozy. Everything seemed to go in slow motion. People were rushing around—nurses, doctors, and for some reason a gang of men in police uniforms were lined up outside the door.

A few minutes passed and once all the medical personnel in the room cleared out, my body started feel normal again. Then the policemen walked in, with their blue shirts and vests on, their badges on their shoulders and their weapons at their sides.

I was still kind of slow, so without thinking about it, I slurred, "Can I help you, officers?"

"Kashia Hagino," One began in a deep, authoritarian voice, "You are under arrest for the murder of Nagao Hagino and two others. You have the right to remain silent, as anything you say may be given as evidence. You have the right to consult with a lawyer and have that lawyer present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you, if you so desire." There was a subtle micro-smirk on his face when he said that, and something told me it was this guy's lifelong dream to arrest somebody.

I was happy about helping the man achieve his lifelong dream, but it was going to be short lived. There was no way that I killed my dad, and there was definitely no way that I was going to jail for it.

"Wait," I began, as the officers started to unbound me. "You don't think I did it, right?"

Nobody answered. They unchained my hands first, then moved down to my legs. Again, I started to panic, and I was a fairly dangerous person when I panicked. As they loosened the restraints, I used my unwounded arm to swipe a lighter that was peaking out of one other officers' pockets. I searched for anything that could provide a distraction, and that's when my eyes fell on a brown bottle sitting on a medical tray beside me. As sneakily as I could, I reached over and set the flame against the bottle. In a few short seconds the plastic had begun burning, and before the police could finish undoing my leg restraints the bottle exploded.

Instantly they forgot about subduing me, and ran out of the building. The fire was eating away at the room full of medical equipment, and the Boys in Blue left me, a minor with an injured hand and a restrained leg, to fend off the flames on my own. Law enforcement at its finest.

I couldn't free myself with only one hand, and I was all out of clever ideas. Just as I thought I'd die a horrible death, the sprinklers came on, and I'd never been so happy to take a cold shower in my life. Unfortunately, the fire kept growing.

I watched as people ran screaming through the hallways. At least twenty doctors slipped and landed on their faces as they tried to run across the wet floors, and staff members that were supposed to _assist_ the patients tossed them aside to save themselves. I sat quietly in my bed that had yet to catch fire, watching as they shoved and dragged each other out of the way, ripping off backpacks and pulling each other's hair. It was like some sort of hospital war field.  
Every man for himself.

Toxic fumes billowed out around me, and in under a minute the air had become so thick I couldn't see two feet in front of me. Fire of all different colors lapped at the furniture, and it might have been kind of pretty if it wasn't destroying my hospital room. As the fire made its way to edge of my bed, I awaited the last burst of adrenaline that people felt before they died, so I could rip myself out of my shackles and flee. It never came.

I wasn't angry, or upset, although I should've been. If I'm being completely honest about my emotions, I was actually kind of annoyed that the whole thing was my fault. Instead of saying my prayers or screaming for help, I was more concerned with deciding if I got killed in a fire that I started, if it was considered suicide or not.

The sprinklers stopped spraying out water, and had began drizzling—if you could even call it that. It was at this point that I cursed the Japanese government and its inconsistent water pressure. I had maybe ten seconds until the heat became unbearable, so I counted down. I had nothing better to do. Seriously.  
 _Ten, nine, eight, seven_ —

Seven was my lucky number. Seven seconds until I passed out, a firefighter dressed in bright yellow burst into the room, cut my leg restraints with shears, and dragged me out. It might have been the inhaled smoke fumes talking, but I think I mumbled, "My hero," when he picked me up. He slung me over his shoulder and carried me through the empty, blistering halls.

When we charged through the main entrance, and I was surprised to see that the courtyard was more chaotic than inside the hospital. Burn victims laid in agony all about the place, and the parking lot was littered with official's vehicles. I thought I was home free, but after the fireman set me down those rotten police officers thanked him and took me into custody again. They shoved me into the back of a police cruiser, then offered me a blanket on account of how I was soaking wet.

 _Law enforcement at its finest._

In my defense, the place was shabby and needed to be renovated anyway. So, in a sense, I did the hospital management board a favor. Unfortunately for me, they didn't see it like that. And it probably had something to with the fact that the Aichi Saiseikai Hospital wasn't the first place I set on fire.

Before that, it was my old public school. That was an accident, too. And before that, it was my grandfather's garage. As I arrived at police headquarters, I saw my name in the headlines streaming across a giant projected screen. My reputation was so tarnished that I was being referred to as "A murderer and an arsonist."

Come on. Me? An arsonist? Maybe.  
But a murderer? Not even.

I was locked in a small bare interrogation room, and again I had my hands bound. I waited for what felt like hours, when the officers finally came in, escorting a man in an expensive gray business suit who appeared as if he hadn't slept all week, but he had twelve cups of coffee this morning so he was running strictly on caffeine power. He had 'sly bastard' written all over him.

Smiling like an ecstatic crackhead, he sat in the chair across from me. I thought I heard him give a slight scoff as he adjusted his square-framed glasses and set his briefcase on the table.

He wasted no time getting straight to business. "Ah, Mr. Hagino. Allow me to introduce myself." He held out a business card for me, which I couldn't grab because my only functional wrist was strapped to the metal armrest of the chair.

"Sorry, I'm a little, uh..." I gestured to my immobilized hands, " _Tied up_ here." I saw an opportunity for a cheesy pun, and I seized it.

"Oh, this one's got a sense of humor." He grinned, turning to the policemen that stood behind. "How lovely."

"What's with all the officers?" I winced at the sound of my voice. It was all raspy and probably sounded sexy as hell, but I wasn't used to hearing myself like that.

He shrugged it off. "This is simply boring old protocol."

"And this?" I attempted to raise my wrist, but all I did was make the restraint pull taught against my skin, leaving a nasty red mark.

"That's also protocol. After all, you're an unpredictable boy, Kashia. We can't have you burning down anymore buildings, or lashing out and mutilating anyone else." His smile changed when he said that. It wasn't the unusually-wide, non-blinking, pleasant smile he entered the room with. For a split second, that false aura of cheerfulness faltered and I sensed something dark about him.

"Unpredictable?" I repeated, with a skeptical laugh. "More like, 'extremely accident prone'. I didn't torch that hospital on purpose, y'know."

He sighed, not losing his smile. "You can drop the act, my dear boy. What's done is done."

My voice was riddled with confusion. "Act?"

"Yes, act," He responded as if he was talking to a slow child.

"What act? And why are you here, anyway?"

"I'm your attorney!" The man crooned, and he seemed slightly too happy to trust. "The best one money can buy. My name is Tamaki Tsunenaga, but you'll simply address me as Tamaki."

"You're my attorney? What do I need an attorney for?" I peered around at the other men in the room, hoping they'd provide me with answers. "I said it was an accident. Can't we just sign a peace treaty or something and forget about this?"

"Oh, that little stunt you pulled at Aichi Saiseikai Hospital is the least of your worries, although it did cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. Your father's fortune will cover that nicely." He tilted his head and his grin widened, if that was even possible. "Let's focus on the crime you committed last night, shall we?"

"Crime? I don't even remember what happened last—"

My breath caught in my throat. I thought I might have another asthma attack. I hadn't really thought about last night, I merely shrugged it off as some kind of crazily vivid nightmare. I didn't even stop to think how I got my injuries. Inspecting my wounded arm, chills radiated up my body. Turns out it wasn't just a dream.

I veered forward, trying to stop myself from throwing up. Tears stung at my eyes, but I convinced myself that crying wouldn't help the situation.

It took me a few minutes to calm down, but Tamaki seemed patient enough. I glanced the attorney with wide eyes. "Wait, so... What happened last night really... Happened?" I lunged at him desperately, and the officers in the room tensed up. "So that _wasn't_ a nightmare?"

Tamaki stood up and adjusted his tie. "I'm afraid not."

There was a lump the size of a baseball forming in my throat. My words were barely even audible in the silent room. "So my dad is dead, huh. Sakae, and my little sister too? They're dead?" I looked around the room, and everyone appeared to be avoiding eye contact with me. I repeated my question, my voice cracking from all the emotion I was trying to withhold. "They're dead?"

"Yes, they're gone." Tamaki concluded. "Chin up!" He beamed, clasping his hands together. "What happened to that darling sense of humor you had a few minutes ago?"

I ignored him. "You can't be serious. You don't think I did it, right?"

Nobody answered, not even that smiley bastard who seemed to be enjoying himself.

Suddenly the sorrow welding inside me turned to rage, and I pulled at my restraints like an animal trying to free itself from chains. "It wasn't me! Why would I do something like that? You have to find the guy that did it!"

Tamaki sighed. I wasn't even sure if he was listening to me. "Yes, yes, we're working on it."

"It was the—the..." I thought back to that terrifying night, and I tried to picture my alleged attacker. All I could remember was a bloody masked face and a psychotic smile, so that's what I referred to him as. "It was the Masked Psycho!"

Tamaki put his hand on my shoulder, attempting to calm me. "And I'll do everything in my power to ensure that everyone knows that."

I didn't feel any more secure. I just sank into my seat in disbelief that my family had been murdered and I was being framed for it.

•••

I wasn't exactly confident in my chances with this case, considering most of our attorney-client meetings went like this:

"Okay Tamaki, you better—"

"Not to be rude, but would it kill you to show some respect?"

"Okay, _Mr. Tamaki_ , I want answers!" I'd snap, sounding like the interrogator myself. "First of all, why does everyone think it's me? I mean, don't you guys have DNA testing nowadays? Secondly, why—"

The creepy smile never leaves his face. Ever. "Mr. Hagino, please. I'm supposed to be the one asking all the questions, not you. "

"But my questions are important and—"

"I'm sure they are, but there are some things we have to discuss first."

I would sigh loudly, sinking down into the chair.

"Firstly, I need you to tell me—"

"Has anybody ever told you that you look like a weasel? Because you do."

He'd groan, placing his index fingers on the bridge of his nose.

And we'd keep repeating the cycle for hours. So on the day of my hearing I didn't care much for what happened. My family was dead, and apparently I'd killed them.

The courtroom was filled with my grieving relatives and my father's coworkers. I couldn't bring myself to make eye contact with any of them, but I glanced up reluctantly with the hopes that I'd see my twin brother. He wasn't there. He didn't even take time off to come to my hearing. I didn't blame him. The past few weeks had been hell for me, so it was natural that he'd be overwhelmed by this mess, too.

I sat numbly through the entire trial, staring at my hands and starting to believe that maybe these were the hands that murdered three people. Or maybe that night with the Masked Psycho was all in my head and I'd actually butchered my family. Every so often I'd have to clench my hands into a fist and tell myself that what I witnessed was real, and that I got my wounds from some freaky costumed mutant—not my dad trying to fight me as I allegedly cut him to pieces.

"Hang in there, Kashi," I whispered to myself, trying to stay strong at least until I was out of the court, "You're not a murderer."

And that's when I heard the word "Guilty," slip out of the judge's mouth. It echoed loudly in the silent room, and it broke my thoughts like a vase smashing to the ground.

What followed was the devastated whispers and melancholy wailing from my relatives, as he stated my fate. Capital punishment.

I froze. My vision started to flicker. People's mouths were moving, but my ears seemed to stop working. I couldn't hear anything, not even what Mr. Tamaki, my lousy fucking attorney, whispered in my ear before looking away with a saddened smile.

I opened my mouth but there was no sound. It seemed like my vocal cords weren't cooperating, either. That was fine, though. What was I going to say, anyway? I'd already been condemned, and everybody I told my ridiculous story to called me crazy.

I stared at the shocked faces in the courtroom. Apparently this was the first time someone so young had been given the death penalty in such a short time. A few people seemed relieved—as though I'd received the justice I deserved—and that stuck a nerve. I stood up, and even though I was looking down at the desk in front of me, I could tell by the way hush fell over the room that everyone's eyes were on me.

"W-wait," I said breathlessly, fighting my hardest not to faint, "It wasn't—I didn't..."

My head started spinning and my vision flickered. I swallowed hard and tried speaking again, but the only words I could manage before passing out were " _Not me_."

I felt sick again, and before I knew it, my head banged against the table.  
Again, I was out.  
Like a light.


	4. Chapter 3

A wise man once said to me, "Don't rock the boat." That wise man was my uncle, dropping me off on my first day of middle school because my parents never had the time. Funny, that was five years ago, and I've done whole a lot of boat-rocking since then. I had gotten into so much trouble in my first year alone my permanent record must have looked like a police case file. Now I have an actual police case file, and it's probably as thick as a bible.

For the record, it's not like I wanted to be a troublemaker. It wasn't my goal to end up in prison. There was a time in my life when I was a normal kid, not a kid that shoplifted and torched hospitals, but that time ended the very same day that my mom died. She was one of the countless victims claimed by the Red Hole, an earthquake that sank 70% percent of Tokyo and turned my life into the shitshow you see today.

That very morning, my family decided to inform me of something that put a lot of emotional strain on an innocent-minded five year old boy. It was the kind of news I had no say in, the "Just let it sink in," "You'll understand when you're older," type. Parents need to recognize that that kind of empty reasoning doesn't have any effect on kids. I didn't understand their motives back then, and now I was older, and I still didn't understand. So a very young, heartbroken, angry Kashia Hagino packed a firecracker in his school bag and dealt with the feelings the only way he knew how: by creating mischief.

It's been ten years since then, and mischief wasn't just a way to vent my feelings anymore. It had become one of those unshakable bad habits, like swearing or drinking, and once you got started there was no easy way to stop it. I know my father had put up with my behavior silently for all those years, without the support of my step-mom, who was more interested in his money than the well being of his children. Even though I knew he was nearing his limits, I didn't stop causing trouble. How else was I supposed to deal with my pent-up emotions?

You'd probably suggest seeing a guidance counselor or going to a support group, like normal people do. But I think it's safe to say I'm not like normal people. For starters, I hold grudges for years. I'd been mad at my parents, and my brother, ever since the morning of the earthquake, when they sprung the surprising news on me out of nowhere. They'd known about it for months, and chose to tell me on the day he was leaving. And I don't mean to be salty about it (actually, I _do_ mean to be salty about it) but that was just a little unfair to me. Just a little.

Ten years is a lot of time, but hardly anything has changed. Ten years had passed, and I was still upset that I didn't get a chance to reconcile with my mom. Ten years had passed, and I'd only seen my twin brother three times. The murder of my family served as some sort of wake up call for me, and for the first time in ten years I was willing to not hold grudges anymore—because who knows, someone you care about could suddenly end up dead. And before I was shipped 450 miles away to a prison in Tokyo, my uncle ran up to me as I was being thrown in the back of a prison van, and for the first time since middle school, he told me again, "Don't rock the boat."

But here I was, standing on top of a mangled prison bus, in a rioting prison yard, wondering if starting a prison riot constituted boat-rocking or not.

I know it sounds pretty questionable, but believe me, I didn't do it on purpose.

Allow me to explain.

Seeing as I was due at Deadman Wonderland Prison by noon, I had to leave Aomori at the unholy hour of four in the morning, with nothing but an eight-hour drive and a prolonged period of motion sickness to look forward to. As you can guess, long drives aren't the happiest times for me. Not only because I threaten to spew my breakfast at every sharp swerve, but because I have ADHD. Well, I don't _really_ have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but if you ask any of my former school teachers they'll agree with me. I can't sit in one place for too long without getting extremely bored, and when I get bored I'll do anything to get rid of my boredom—and I mean anything. I once got locked in the storeroom of a convenience store and made what was probably the world's biggest diet-Coke-and-Mentos fountain. True story.

Unfortunately, this time I was locked in the back of a prison bus, and had a complete lack of carbonated liquids and breath mints. But there were explosives in my prison uniform that were itching to be ignited. The problem was, my hands were cuffed in front of me, and the only other inmate on the bus was a guy that looked like he'd snap if I looked at him wrong.

Not too much older than me—he was about nineteen, twenty the most. My stereotypical image of a convict was an unbelievably muscular bald guy that was as tall as a bear and twice as thick, with tattoos on his neck, ankles, and everywhere in between. Letting my imagination get the best of me, I had forgotten there could be normal-looking people in prison. You know, a working-class guy that accidentally ran a red light and couldn't afford to pay the ticket; a misguided young adult caught shoplifting to feed his family. Not everyone that went to prison was a mass-murder, or a rapist pedophile, or the leader of a global drug cartel. But this guy—no. This guy looked like a mixture of all three.

Right from the start I got serial-killer vibes from him. He had a narrow face with snake-like features, and two small black spike piercings protruded from beneath each side of his lower lip. I think they were called snakebites.

His abnormal level of paleness indicated that he hadn't seen the sun in years, which was probably due to the fact that he spent most his time in his basement psychologically torturing his kidnapped victims before extracting all of their teeth and fingernails with a pair of linesman pliers, and unremorsefully skinning them alive and wearing their skin for sexual arousal.

He exhaled, and I flinched. Sometimes I can't stop my mind. It's scary.

His eyes were two sharp slits carved out of his gently sloping facial profile, and aside from the fact that he didn't blink much, the color of them was most alarming. Blood red. They nicely contrasted his dark hair. His hair was a raven mess that stood up in uneven tufts, like he had bedhead and decided that he liked the way it looked. His thin, soft eyebrows were dyed red too, and if he didn't look like he hadn't slept since World War II, he would've been kind of hot.

You know, in that weird, psychotic kind of way.

For the first few hours, he just sat silently with a strained expression, like he was already planning his escape. A few times a slight smile would grace his lips and he'd have to stifle a laugh, then roll his head on the axis of his neck, which made me wince.

I sneaked two smoke grenades in under my prison jumpsuit after they stripped me down and searched me (don't ask how), and those grenades would be crucial to the escape plan I had already arranged in my head. My dilemma was that my hands were shackled, and the only guy that could help me was Jeffrey Dahmer Jr.

I eyed him, and was considering asking him to help me with my problem when he looked up and caught me staring.

"What?" He asked, a grin stretching across his thin lips.

 _It spoke_ , I thought, with a horrified expression on my face.

"Wanna ask why I'm in here?" He tilted his head, his snake-like smile widening. When I didn't respond, he let out a hissing chuckle and said, "Fine, I'll tell you."

"Okay, then." I sat up straight, trying to be as attentive as I could. I had nothing better to do. Seriously.

He stretched his arms and the chains of his handcuffs dangled through the air. "Attempted murder," He announced in a disinterested tone.

I waited for him to continue, but when he didn't I added, "Mind if I ask why?"

"Not at all." He stated. "To get rid of a headache."

"To get rid... of a headache?"

"That's right."

"Oh." I nodded. "Okay. That makes sense."

He gave another quiet hissing laugh, bringing the back of his palm to his mouth. "I'd ask you why you're here, but I already know."

I got the feeling that he was dealing a low blow, but instead of insisting upon my innocence, I sighed, rolled my eyes, and sighed again. Sure, that was a bit dramatic and completely unnecessary, but I was fed up. And I had every right to be. There was no use in trying to prove my innocence; I was already on the way to prison for it, and if that wasn't bad enough, I was on death row.

On the bright side, though, my reputation as a cold-blooded juvenile killer might be the only thing capable of protecting me in a madhouse filled with criminals and thugs. Would you mess with the fifteen year old boy that unashamedly mutilated his entire family? I think the fuck not.

Instead of being honest and telling him I never harmed a single person in my household, I leaned forward, engaging him with my eyes. "You don't wanna go to prison, do you?"

He raised a slender black eyebrow. "No," he whispered, "I don't. What's your point?"

I found my lips forming an impish smirk. That's how you know I was up to no good. "If you wanna risk lengthening your sentence, then help me out. If we're successful you won't have to do any time at all."

"And if we're not, giving us a lengthened sentence would be going easy on us."

"Shhh. I plan on being successful. Do you trust me?"

"A kid I met two minutes ago on a prison bus? Of course."

I lowered my voice so the driver and the guards in the front wouldn't hear through the partition. "I have two tactical smoke grenades, both tucked under my arms on either side. I've been holding them there since I was put on the bus."

Both his eyebrows shot up. "Ohoho?" I expected him to ask how I managed to smuggle them in, but all he said was, "Isn't that uncomfortable?"

"Little bit."

"I see," He said with admiration. "What do you suppose we do once we those grenades?"

I was so glad he asked. "Hopefully they'll cause confusion, and the heat from the grenades might cause the chains from the handcuffs to snap."

"Might?"

"Might."

"Good enough. So what do we do once we get our hands free?"

"We're going to have to light it when we're crossing the bridge going into the prison. It'll take about forty-five seconds for the grenades to burn out, which will cause the driver to stop and the officers will run around to the back to check. Normally the bus takes a route to the prison on the bridge specially built to transport inmates, but lucky for us a support column gave out last week and it's still being fixed."

"Ah, so we'll have to take the theme park bridge, using the lane especially for prison-bound vehicles." He placed his hand under his chin, his fiery eyes scanning the interior of the van as his mind raced. "Since the bridge is always full of traffic, they won't be able to successfully pull out of the way of the public before stopping the bus, giving us our desired time frame. What do we do then?"

"After our hands have been freed we can either escape the van before the guards come around, or jump them when they open the door. From there we have three options: hijack a vehicle, hide among civilians, or go over the side."

His expression said it all, _excuse me_? "The side of _what_?"

"The bridge." I answered. It sounded a lot less crazy in my head.

"I'm pretty sure that would get us killed?"

"Probably," I said. There was a long pause. "It's a last resort."

After contemplating for a few moments, a scary grin stretched across the other inmate's thin lips. I knew what he was thinking: _This just might work._ I didn't need to ask because I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway. "Are you in?"

"Why not?" He shrugged with another hiss, then raised his arms dramatically. " _May the odds be ever in our favor_."

A _Hunger Games_ reference? I liked this guy already.

• • •

We were still about an hour away from our target. Since I had no other form of entertainment, I decided to get to know Snake Boy. Turns out his name was actually Tendo Kiyori, and he tried killing his mother. That's a great way to start a conversation.

I mean, I'm sure we've all told our parents at some point that they were a pain in the neck. But no, Tendo was convinced that his mother was more of a pain in the _head_. According to Snake Boy, his mom kept nagging him about getting a job or going to college—saying that he was "wasting his life" even though he was only eighteen. All her badgering lead him to believe that she was causing his crippling headache, and that the only way to get rid of it was to kill her. So he did. Or at least he tried. He went after her with a knife, but neighbors heard her screams and called police, who arrived before Tendo could finish the job.

He readily admitted to stabbing the woman nine times, which painted a pretty graphic picture in my head. His mother was hospitalized in critical condition, but thankfully she survived. Tendo, on the other hand, was facing the charge of first-degree attempted murder, with 15 years of prison time ahead of him. That is, if our plan failed. If we succeeded we'd be home free. If not, a lot more than 15 years was in store for Tendo.

Fortunately, when it was time for me to share the details of my story, the bridge was approaching and I didn't have time to lie about what happened.

As expected, the bridge leading to Deadman Wonderland Correctional Facility was blocked off, so the bus took a detour along the public theme park bridge. It was packed with vehicles of all sorts, streaming to and from the amusement park section of the privately owned colony. For the first time I wondered whose idea it was to build a theme park so close to a prison. Although I was more baffled by the fact that so many people visited the prison-based theme park, and for the hundredth time I began to question the collective sanity of the Japanese population.

After all, Japan is the place that invented the Lap Pillow, a cushion meant to be a mini-skirted human substitute, which is shaped like a pair of kneeling woman's legs, made exclusively for sociopaths and lonely middle-aged men who don't have actual female legs to lay on. Nobody in good mental health would create something like that. _Nobody_.

The van slowed to a stop as it got stuck maneuvering through the traffic, turning onto the prison lane. Here was my chance.

"Now," I whispered to Tendo, and he nodded and zipped down the front of my jumpsuit, taking out one of the grenades. We only had about a minute before the guards pulled into the private lane heading to the prison, so without hesitation Tendo popped the cap on the grenade. And that's when there was a sudden clearing in the traffic, allowing the bus to pull into the private lane.

Just my luck.

The bus filled with warm white smoke, and the guards began shouting from across the petition. Soon the smoke was so thick that is impossible for the driver to see, but the bus kept moving, accelerating in speed. The smoke started to kick in my asthma, but above my own wheezing, I heard someone else's. It was coming from the front, and I realized that the increasing speed and dangerous jerking of the vehicle wasn't because the driver couldn't see. It was because he couldn't breathe.

I don't know if it was asthma, but the driver also had some sort of respiratory issue, and the smoke was giving him a hard time. By the way the wheezing suddenly quieted the bus swerved dangerously in the empty lane, I assumed the driver had passed out with his foot pressing hard on the gas pedal.

Looks like my luck was getting better.

The bus had to be going at least 90 miles per hour—much too fast for the prison gate that was slowly opening at the end of the lane. The bus narrowly made it through, clipping the gate post and smashing through a wire fence. In an attempt to stop the bus from ramming into the entrance, a guard yanked the wheel to the left, causing the high-speed van to swerve violently, almost tipping, and sent it crashing through a stone wall and into a courtyard full of yardworking prisoners.

The van flipped onto its side and skidded to a stop, the sound of groaning metal and the smoke grenade hissing as it burned were the only things to be heard. My wheezing had stopped; the shock of being in an accident made my seizing lungs relax. The collision completely smashed the front of the bus and had ripped away the side of one of the walls in the back section of the bus where Tendo and I were held. Aside from landing awkwardly on my neck, I was fine and so was Snake Boy.

"Our plan failed." I stated obviously.

"I can see that," Tendo replied, laughing. "What now?" He asked.

"We improvise." I answered. "Here's what we—"

But Tendo had his own plan. He reached into my uniform and plucked out the other smoke grenade—a red one. He crawled his way out of the wreckage and onto the top of the tipped-over vehicle. The inmates were making a dash for the new exit we created when guards filed in with their weapons drawn. But they weren't about to let their chance at freedom slip away so easily, and Tendo knew that. He stomped his feet on the metal exterior to gather attention, then popped the cap on the red grenade. Hoisting it high above his head, he took a deep breath and yelled, "RIOT!"

And _voila_.  
 _Instant chaos_.

The prisoners rushed the guards with whatever they had: shovels, spades, rocks, pieces of wood and broken glass, and I even saw one with a garden hose. The guards tried their best to hold off prisoners until their backup came. Red smoke drifted across the courtyard like frost. In the heat of it all, Tendo was going all out, spurring on the prisoners like a general hyping up his army for battle. I tapped him on the ankle, and told him that we should probably disappear in the midst of all the chaos, so he threw the grenade that had just about burned out, climbed down, and bolted for the exit with me.

We only ran a few meters before more guards started pouring in from the back entrance of the prison, and my neck was met with the sharp tip of a thin katana blade.

The sword belonged to a tall, scarily attractive woman whose penetrating eyes frightened me more than the sword did. A long lock of her brown hair hung out from underneath her dark blue beret, and she brushed it to the side as she pushed the tip of the katana into my neck, but not hard enough to draw blood. "Kashia Hagino," she began with a voice as steady as iron, her words were punctuated with a slight waver of her blade as it moved up to my chin. "Inmate 6313. Is this your doing?"

I didn't know what to say. Her dark eyes were so intense that lying seemed almost impossible. I turned my head to scan for Tendo, and saw that a guard had apprehended him too, but he still kept his sly grin, like he was enjoying himself.

"Don't make me repeat myself," She ordered sternly, and I felt a small sting on my neck. Instinctively I raised my hands to my throat, and felt a warm liquid seeping out onto them. My fingertips were stained with blood, but thankfully not much. "6313, answer me!"

"Oh, I uh..." Was the only thing I could come up with, which made my inner wiseguy shake his head in disappointment. Truth is, I had a million wisecracks I could've dealt, but the lady was holding a sword to my neck and she'd made it clear that she was not afraid to use it, so pissing her off wasn't exactly a good idea. So I backed away from her blade and pointed to the mangled wreck of a bus that held the dead driver and prison guards, who were all killed in the crash. "I _may_ have crashed your prison bus," I said with the most naive voice I could muster, "But don't worry, it's not that bad. Just a couple nicks, couple scratches. Get a new paint job, change a flat tire maybe, polish it up a bit and it'll be good as new."

She turned her head to look at the bus, which looked like a soda can that had been crushed under somebody's foot. She looked back at me, clearly not amused.

"Good as new," I repeated, laughing nervously.

"I don't have time for this," She groaned. She pulled out something from a pouch on her side—a small black gadget about the size of her palm. In one swift movement she connected the gadget with my side, and from the rush of electricity making my limbs seize and my vision flicker, I realized it was a taser.

She tased me. Real mature.

The last thing I remember was her high-heeled boot nudging the side of my head when I fell to the floor, and then it was nothing but darkness.

• • •

Now over the course of the past few weeks, I had often joked with myself about wanting to die—and half of the time I meant it—but when that intimidating, other-worldly female guard put her taser to my ribs, I swear my soul left my body for six seconds and it was terrifying. Truth is, as much as I wanted to be "disposed of", I didn't want it to be at the hands of a crazy woman with a high-voltage taser.

Which is why I was so relieved when I came to in a medical room, looking all over my body for any injuries. I thought she'd tased me to death, if that was even possible.

As soon as I sat up in the bed, the two guards that were standing at the door walked over to me.

"Oh great, he's awake." One said with a level of sarcasm that I approved of.

They grabbed me by both my arms, and before I could ask where they were taking me, the other said, "Let's go, kid. You've got orientation."

They practically dragged me out of the bed and into the hallway, then continued dragging me along the corridor until they dropped me at the door of a bare grey room, where guards were lined off along one wall and inmates along the other. They shoved me inside and told me to join the line.

I recognized Snake Boy among the inmates lined off, and a sly smirk cured onto his lips as well as mine. The other inmates were all male, and all young. Nobody on that line could have been more than twenty years old.

The woman that had tased me was standing in front of the inmates, pacing back and forth, inspecting each of us. "I'm Makina, the chief warden here at Deadman Wonderland." She began her speech casually, and all her actions were planned and deliberate, like she'd done the speech a thousand times and never once messed it up. "It's the first, and only, privately owned corrections facility in the country, where inmates pay their debt to society by lubricating the tourist trade. Thanks to this institution, the crime rate in Japan has dropped tremendously and is almost nonexistent, which explains why there are only six of you reprobates in front of me."

I looked over at the other inmates, and one looked almost as young as I was. The only odd one out was Tendo, who's six foot four stature made him look older than he was.

Makina continued, "Unless you've been living under a rock, you know how unique our little operation is. Administrative autonomy boys and girls, everything is done in-house..."

I stopped listening to her lecture and tried convince myself this was reality—my reality. My parents were dead—both of them. My sister was so badly disfigured that at her funeral (that I was not allowed to attend) the coffin remained closed. My only relative was God-knows-where, and he didn't even care enough to come to my trial. It was a depressing existence, I knew that. Yet no matter how many times I told myself that, it still didn't feel real. It just felt like a long, vivid nightmare. (Although though bruises from the accident the day before felt pretty real.)

I snapped out of my thoughts when the warden's face suddenly appeared in front of mine. "You following me, Hagino?"

She was so close to me that I forgot how to speak for a few seconds, but I managed to blurt out something really clever like, "Uh—um, yeah."

She stared at me, unblinking, for what felt like hours, and I thought she was going to hack me to pieces right then and there. Luckily for me, she just scoffed and turned away.

That was close. I thought she might tase me again.

Then we were given small gray bags and told that these were our starter packs.

"Your knapsacks contain all the bare necessities, including your Deadman Wonderland handbook. If you're clever, you can survive on them for three days." Makina explained. "Now, a word about your collars. They're not just how we tag, track, and, if needed, prod you, they're much more involved. Unless death row inmates wish to perish, they must consume candy every three days. This temporarily counteracts the stream of poison being pumped into their necks."

My reaction to that statement went something like: _Oh, that's nice. I'm constantly being poisoned._

 _Wait... what?_

Until my brain actually comprehended what she said, then it became an all-out angry rant: _You're kidding, right? This—this is a joke? Okay, I mean I knew this prison wasn't normal—it looks like a demented playhouse, for fuck's sake—but it's still a correctional institution, right? I'm no expert, but I'm sure those don't usually have handbooks. Or electric collars. And... Candy? What the hell? What type of prison is this?_

Make no mistake, all this was said _in my head_. I'm not nearly stupid enough to mouth off in front of the lady who had slit my throat and mildly electrocuted me.

•••

Prison was okay.

For the first two weeks, maybe.

I understood the system pretty well. All you needed to do to survive was earn Cast Points and try not to attract attention to yourself, and I did both of those things with ease.

The inmates had a secret Fight Club network, which I discovered by accident (it's a long story), and after barely surviving my first fight, they let me join. Keep in mind that I'm an average kid that's barely five foot five, so it was a real miracle.

To be blunt, it's basically an underground circuit where men get together and beat the crap out of each other. They fight for one reason and one reason only: Cast Points. Since Cast Points were the prison's form of currency, you needed them for clothes, food, candy and everything else. This meant that guys were willing to do almost anything to get their hands on them, even if it meant getting beat half to death in front of thirty other inmates. I guess it was better than the alternative, which was being bludgeoned to death in front of thousands of people for their twisted personal amusement.

I became reasonably popular within the circuit. Well, I never really fought in any of the matches. Spectating inmates would bet on who would win, and whoever I placed my wager on would always end up victorious. I even got a nickname; they started calling me the "Fortune Teller" or something equally as cheesy.

Call it a gift.

Call it a hunch.

Or call it me going on recon missions to find out which two inmates would be exchanging blows, and then drugging one of them before the match. Ninety-five percent of the time it resulted in me walking away with about three times the Cast Points than I walked in with. The other five percent it resulted in me getting beat up because someone suspected I was cheating.

Naturally, I was cell mates with Tendo. In hindsight, prison management didn't make the best choice when pairing us up. In the first week alone, Tendo and I tried to escape eleven times. We were almost successful with Escape Plan #9, which involved a small child and ninja costumes.

I had also come to learn that he was a snake on all levels except physical (well, kind of—he was kind of a snake physically.) He was a slithery little manipulative bastard that had climbed the ranks so fast in a few days that he was already the head of an inmate mafia. He lied, cheated, and stole his way to wealth the second week, so even though we were both fresh meat, he was still higher up on the food chain than me. It wasn't fair.

Aside from the fact that he robbed me of my unrightfully earned CP more than once, I'd say we got along just fine.

It wasn't what I was used to, but I adjusted quickly and I was doing great. I got so comfortable with my new lifestyle that one day I had the audacity to say to myself, "Well, this is it. It can't get any worse than this."

And guess what?

It did.

Ah, the irony.

I let my guard down for seven seconds and suddenly there's _another_ prison riot between the guards and the inmates. But that's not the strange part—the strange part that just when I thought my body couldn't get any weirder, it just proves me wrong and starts emitting a red mist that caused bodies to start dropping left, right, and center.

Right, allow me to explain. Again.

I suppose it all started when my good friend Warden Makina realized that numerous inmates had been regularly dropping off the radar. That was because we held our weekly Fight Club matches in spacious tunnels that supposedly lead to an underground block of Deadman Wonderland. As far as we knew, that was just a rumor to keep curious inmates from exploring the labyrinth-styled catacombs of DMWL.

Something was obviously suspicious; more prison officers started patrolling the route I took to enter the tunnels, but the other inmates paid no mind to it, so I didn't either. But then again, the other inmates were idiots. The increase in guards should have been a red flag, but no, they ignored it—if they even noticed it all.

I can't say I was shocked when the inevitable happened: our fight club was ambushed. Somehow a guard got a hold of one of the club members, and managed to pound information out of him: our location, our meeting times, our roster—everything. The officers tracked us down with ease.

As soon as the guards burst into the tunnels, interrupting an interesting fight between Tatsuda and Ukon, I wanted to jump up and shout _I told you so!_ at each and every one of those ignorant prisoners. But I had bigger fish to fry. One of the officers was pointing a laser-guided machine gun at my chest.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how our Fight Club was exposed. But it doesn't stop there. You should've seen this coming.

Guards seized us all; we were nastily outnumbered, but naturally the Fight Club members wouldn't go down without, well, _a fight._ They all resisted, even though the guards asked them to comply without violence. And so it turned into a bloodbath, one where human innards rained down from the ceiling like confetti.  
As if I wasn't mentally scarred enough.

Inmates that weren't even on death row were being slaughtered, exploding in a mess of bloody shrapnel thanks to the military-grade weapons the officers wielded. Being the fearless warrior that I am, I stood and cowered behind some heavy machinery in the tunnel, praying that nobody would notice me.

Of course, my prayers weren't answered.

Eventually a guard—my _favorite_ guard—noticed me. The Warden herself. I was surprised to see the Chief come out to handle something so trivial, but apparently she'd been losing inmates to an unregistered part of Deadman Wonderland for quite some time now. Since she couldn't bear the thought of having not being able to control every part of this fine institution, she vowed not to let this bunch slip through her fingers. What a megalomaniac.

Now, all of you know that I was on death row. This means that I actually _was_ expendable, meaning the warden could've turned me into sushi and no one would've batted an eye. Ever since I was admitted to Deadman Wonderland, Makina had been itching to stick her sword through my diaphragm. So when she approached me with murder in her eyes, I knew my very short, very disappointing life had come to an end.

When she raised her sword to cut my head off, behind the screen of rage in her eyes, I could see regret. Since we'd only met twice before, I had no idea why she was so upset with me, or why we couldn't just discuss it over a cup of coffee instead of settling it with violence. Before she put and end to me, the woman looked at me with contempt and muttered, "Hagino, I should've known you had something to do with this. You act so naive—it was just a facade! I'm not making the same mistake I made with 5580."

Oh. That's where all the anger came from. She was still bitter about how she slipped-up with another inmate. Sadly, she was going to take it out on me. I vowed that if I lived to meet 5580, I'd whoop his ass. No excuses.

She started to bring her sword down and shouted, "This ends here!"

At the last second, I lurched forward so her blade struck my shoulder instead of my neck.

I did what anybody in that situation would do: scream. Then I retaliated with a wisecrack. "You got that outta your system?" I forced a smirk, trying to ignore the katana embedded in my shoulder. "Do you feel better now?"

I just made things worse.

My blood sprayed everywhere, and Psycho-Warden was determined to hack me to pieces. I was desperate. I thought I would die. And of all the ways to die, I'd be killed by a madwoman with a fancy sword. At least my obituary would be interesting.

Makina had managed to leave lacerations on all my limbs, and my chest. There was so much blood seeping out of my wounds I was amazed that there was even any blood left inside of my body. In the middle of my execution, my asthma had started. So as I suffocating to death, I bled to death at the same time.

Just when it looked like lights out for me, something extremely weird happened. No, not extremely weird, _incredibly unnerving_.

The kind of thing that leaves you questioning the meaning of life, your existence, and the creation of the universe all at once. The kind of thing that makes you feel like everything you'd ever been told was a lie—the earth was flat, the tooth fairy was real, the moon landing was faked. The kind of thing that makes it impossible to sleep because who needs sleep anyway?

Yeah, I'm talking about that kind of thing.

A red mist suddenly dispersed into the air. It filled the tunnel with an unpleasant, irritating coppery smell, like blood and cleaning supplies. The next thing I knew, bodies started dropping in all directions. I immediately thought poisonous gas was being leaked into the room, and I instinctively held my breath, against my burning lungs' wishes. I watched guards and inmates pass out in front of me, until my vision started to get spotty.

My head was pounding from the lack of oxygen. Makina had grudgingly given up on killing me; she was shouting orders at her few remaining guards but the only thing I could hear was my struggling heartbeat. The remaining survivors hastily fled, however I was left in there to either succumb to poisoning or suffocate. When I couldn't take it anymore, I released the air I had been retaining in my lungs and took a deep breath in. I was expecting to immediately lose consciousness and wake up at the gates of hell, but nothing I happened. I waited a bit. Still, nothing. Which was weird, though I wasn't complaining. I took the opportunity to make a break for the exit.

But I never made it.

Before I could even comprehend what was happening, I was apprehended by people in suits that I never seen before. They were black and red with the prison emblem on the front, and looked vaguely like bulky Hazmat uniforms. The gas didn't affect them because their faces were covered.

I didn't struggle. I was too weak to fight, and would've been a minor inconvenience at best, but that's not why I chose to remain passive. I did it mainly because nothing good ever happened when I struggled. And even though I didn't struggle, it still didn't end well for me.

I was sedated, put in restraints, and carried off on a stretcher toward the fabled underground block of Deadman Wonderland. The last thing I remember was my head bobbing obtusely and my vision fading as I fought the strong allure of unconsciousness.

I didn't fight it for very long. After 5 seconds, my eyes slipped shut and that was it.

Everything went black.

I was out like a light.


	5. Chapter 4

For someone that passes out this much, you'd think I would really feel refreshed and have a decent amount of energy.  
Not even close.  
In reality, every time I woke up I felt the sudden need to take a nap. It didn't matter if I'd been unconscious for a half an hour or half a day, it always felt like a short five minute nap, and five minutes of sleep isn't enough to sustain a decrepit old lady, much less a fifteen-year-old whose stress levels are so high he's at risk of spontaneously combusting at any moment.

Spontaneous combustion sounded pretty nice, actually. At the very least, it was better than being held in prison for something you didn't do. Now I know the chances of that happening are about as slim as the chances are of me getting out of this hellhole before I'm 85. But you can't blame a kid for dreaming.

A harsh white light pierced my eyelids, and I was careful enough to open my eyes slowly, just to avoid having another panic attack like I did in the hospital. Nonetheless, the light made my eyeballs hurt. In fact, my everything hurt. My limbs were covered in lacerations and gross-looking blue bruises, I had another bone-splitting headache, and my body was stiff and sore from resting on a hard surface.

I shielded my eyes from the blinding glare of the light above me and inched up into a sitting position. I was so drowsy I almost fell, but I caught myself, using my arms to support my body against a cold, smooth surface. It finally dawned on me that I didn't know where I was. My eyes adjusted and I saw that I was in a medical lab.

 _Great_ , I thought.  
Medical facilities always gave me the creeps. They were always so cold and unwelcoming, the exact opposite of cozy. Plus they reminded me of my childhood, which wasn't particularly enjoyable. Let's just say I didn't spend a lot of time riding bikes and playing with action figures, like your average child would.

Huge metal containers with pipes running in and out of them were stationed about the room. Wires of varying colors ran along the checkered tile floor, and white storage cabinets lined the metallic walls. The entire ceiling was a grid of bright LED panel lights, making everything in the room look monochromatic. I was on a freezing metal table, and, after a minute of shivering, it came to my attention that the only thing on my bare body was a thin white sheet laying on my midsection. Well, that and many dotted lines and scribbled words tattooed on the paler-than-normal skin of my abdomen. I realized with a start that these were the markings of a surgeon. I'd learned from my geek of a brother that doctors sometimes do this to identify the correct surgical site. Exactly how I could remember this and not remember my inmate number, I have no idea.

The lab was empty except for a few medics in dark red scrubs, too absorbed in their work to notice me. And if they did notice me, they didn't pay me any mind. Some of them were at computers; others were looking at machines and scribbling notes onto clipboards. Standing at the back of the room, three of them were arguing in front of a holographic widescreen. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I'd seen enough teachers spring pop quizzes on high school students to know what panic and confusion looks like.

The sound of footprints echoing down the hall made me instinctively turn my head toward the doorway, and in walked a woman in a lab coat and a form-fitting short black dress. Her attention was focused on a holo-tablet in her hand, so she didn't seem to notice either. She set down the tablet on a trey that held painful-looking extraction tools and bottles of God-knows-what. Slipping on latex gloves and a surgical mask, she picked up a brown bottle and a cloth. When she turned to me, she jumped back so quickly I was afraid she'd throw the bottle up and whatever was in it would go spraying everywhere. She froze, a look of disbelief on her pretty face. We held each other's stare for a few moments, until she forced her eyes away from me and toward the back of the room. "How are you alive?" She asked in a small voice, as if the concept of me living was beyond taboo.

"I don't know?" I answered, just as puzzled as she was. At the sound of my voice, all the other medics in the room forgot about their tasks and started to gawk at me like I was a new species.  
"Why are you guys staring at me like that?" I raised my hand up to my cheek. "Is there something on my face? Is it because I'm naked?"

"Don't just stand there, subdue him!" The doctor-lady yelled, snapping everyone out of their trance. The next thing I knew, a sea of red masks rushed me, and both my wrists and ankles were restrained to the table. As if being cold and naked wasn't bad enough, I was cold, naked, and now pinned against a metal table—which would've been great if I was into BDSM, but I'm not. I prayed the white sheet didn't drift off my waist and reveal my manhood to a room full of strangers. Though I suppose they had already seen it, since I didn't remember undressing myself.

Medics immediately started attaching cords to me and running tubes into my wrists. Everyone in the room started running about.  
Meanwhile, I was flat on my back, being painfully pricked and sensing little shocks every time a cord was fastened to my body. I knew that moment probably wasn't the best time for me to open my big mouth, but I did it anyway.

"So, did I do something wrong or is this just how you guys greet your patients?" Nobody laughed. Nobody was paying attention to what I was saying, for that matter. They all started flocking to widescreens around the room, and I was shocked when I discovered that they were all looking at diagrams of me. There were torso diagrams, figures of my organs, and full body diagrams, where my manhood was clearly visible. I wasn't too thrilled about that.

The doctor walked back over to me, placing her palms on the table like she felt dizzy. "You should be dead." She said breathlessly.  
I narrowed my eyes in confusion. "But I'm not, so... Yay?"  
"I have to notify the Promoter. This is amazing." She mumbled, running a hand through her choppy brown hair. Her hands shook a little. I guess it wasn't every day one of her patients woke up on an examination table.  
"Maybe you wanna tell me why I'm being studied?" I asked, craning my neck to inspect my body. "Or why I was about to be dissected like a frog?"

She knitted her eyebrows, and made a sound that seemed to be a stifled chuckle. "I was just about to cut into your stomach, and remove the crystal from there. Afterward, I would have harvested your organs for study. You were still fresh, so it was the best time to go through with the extraction." I could tell she was trying to reconstruct a serious expression, but the ghost of a smile still lingered on her face.  
She'd said something about removing a crystal, but I was more concerned about what she said after that. "Still fresh?"  
"That's right." She removed her gloves and set them on the tray beside her. "Thirty-five minutes ago, you stopped breathing. You died."

I blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"  
"This has never happened with a Deadman before. It shouldn't have been possible. The temperatures in this room are low, though still too high to decrease your cells' metabolic needs. They should have started to self-destruct almost immediately. But judging by the records, you've revived without any outside aid. Your brain and other organs escaped damage for far longer than they should have." Out of nowhere, her mood changed. Her face was almost leering. "Oh, imagine if I'd already started to cut into you and you woke up—your scream, it would've—" She let out a soft squeal of ecstasy, and I looked around to see if anyone else was as weirded out as I was.  
Everyone ignored it. Apparently this was normal behavior from her.

I cleared my throat. "So you're saying I... died. My heart stopped beating and everything?"  
She nodded. "All vital bodily functions had ceased."  
"Seriously? I really passed on. I kicked the bucket. I departed this earthly realm. I flatlined. I—"  
She gave me a sardonic look. "Yes, you died."  
"I just can't believe it."

I don't know why I was acting so shocked. Deep down inside, I knew that my body very well could have shut down half an hour ago and started up out of nowhere, with no permanent drawbacks. It's a long story, starting all the way back when I was a kid, but after a while my little "problem" suddenly stopped. I thought it had gone away. But now, ten years later, here it is again. How naive could I be for hoping I'd be normal?

The woman summoned one of the medics and told them to "Inform the Promoter," then sat at a desk not too far from me and began typing away on a holographic computer.  
A medic walked over to me, examined me for a moment and wrote something on a notepad.  
"Hey, so are you guys going to explain any of this," I gestured to the wires all over my body, "Or do I have to guess?"  
He was silent for a while, and I was pretty sure he wasn't going to answer me, but then he sighed and said, "Everything will be explained once the Promoter gets here."  
"When will this 'Promoter' guy get here? 'Cause, my butt's kinda cold."  
"Few minutes, give or take. Maybe longer if he's busy."

So I counted. And after 491 seconds, I heard more footsteps and a familiar face strutted in.  
Same square-framed glasses.  
Same weasel-like features.  
Same I-want-you-to-think-I'm-a-harmless-happy-go-lucky-businessman-but-I'm-actually-a-sly-bastard smile.

He opened his mouth to say something but I spoke first. "Fancy meeting you here." I said.  
Tamaki Tsunenaga's grin widened. "I see you're handling things well. I'd say you're the calmest one we've ever had."  
"Calm? No. I'm freaking out. I'm just not showing you I'm freaking out because whenever I express the slightest bit of panic someone always gets hurt. And by _someone_ , I mean _me_."  
"You're a comical one, aren't you?" He chuckled."That's too bad. One thing that never survives this place is a sense of humor."  
"My sense of humor survived one year at high school, and that's the one place that makes everyone feel dead inside. If you guys wanna get rid of my sense of humor, you're gonna have to try harder."  
"Oh believe me, this is only the tip of the iceberg." He chimed. His voice was laden with excitement.

I set my head back against the table, staring up at the blinding white lights and hoping they'd really blind me. "Where am I?"  
"Is that honestly the most pressing question on your mind right now?"  
"Actually, yeah."  
"You're in G-block's medical laboratory, safely tucked away from the rest of the prison."  
"Oh. Cool."  
"My, you've suddenly gone impassive. Aren't you going to ask what your 'lawyer' is doing all the way down here?"  
"Whatever floats your boat." I sighed. "Alright, _Tamaki_ , what are you doing all the way down here?"  
"You've probably guessed it by now, but that entire attorney thing was a farce—"  
"I fucking knew it."  
He looked at me, and for a split second his bizarre smile faltered. "Did you, now?" He smiled even wider. "Your trial was interesting, to say the least, but proving you guilty was easier than I thought. I suppose I owe that to your previous history of being a habitual liar and juvenile trouble maker."

Habitual liar? Well, maybe. But a delinquent? Absolutely not. I'd only gotten expelled three times—once for being in possession of illegal fireworks (I was framed; Ironic, isn't it?), then for setting off the emergency alert system because I didn't want to go to class, and then for setting my last school on fire—accidentally. But it wasn't all that serious. Most of the building is still standing.

"It was terribly easy to make the public believe that you'd gotten into a heated argument with your parents about some trouble you'd gotten into—about that car you stole? Surely you remember that."  
True, I'd stolen an antique car some time ago, but only because I found them so much cooler than the ones we had today. The only people who knew about that were me and the guy I stole it from. I wasn't sure how Tamaki found out, but even if my father learned about my crimes, he'd scold me about it then ship me off to a boarding school out of the country. There was no way we'd fight about it and then I'd get so pissed that I decide to hack him to pieces.

I would've defended myself and told Tsunenaga to crawl back into whatever hellhole he came out of, but my throat was swelling up the way it does when I want to shout. I hated when that happened.

"However, all that lawyer work is the most tedious part of my multifaceted job. My real work is in promotions. But your case wasn't my first, or my last. It certainly wasn't my favorite, but it may be a close second. Everything went so smoothly, and now I've got another toy to add to my collection."  
"Toy?" I managed to say.  
"Yes, and tomorrow you'll have the chance to prove yourself. Fortunately, tomorrow is your first time battling. We're expecting a marvelous show." He clapped his hands together with anticipation. "It'll be a very special match. You'll be going up against one of my favorites. I hope to see you at full potential, Deadman!'"  
"Did you have too many cups of coffee this morning? You're not making any sense."  
"See, these little tests are the reality of Deadman Wonderland, and if you win the prize is not only free candy, but an obscene amount of Cast Points. So stay positive."

I looked over at one of the medics. "Is this guy alright in the head?"  
The "Promoter" laughed."You've got a sharp tongue, too. Don't cut yourself." His smile shifted from just plain creepy to just plain scary. "I hope you're this entertaining in the ring. Emerge victorious from enough of our tests, and you'll get to meet the man who murdered your family."  
"Over it." I said mundanely. They were dead. I was in jail for the rest of my life. That was that.  
"You may say that, but you and I both know you'll never get over their deaths, and you'll never forget about the night you saw the man who made your life a living hell."

Groaning, I banged the back of my head against the table. He was right. I'd love the chance to slaughter that masked piece of shit. But did I tell him that? No. Instead I told him, "Killing him wouldn't change anything."  
"But one can't deny the satisfaction of seeing someone who has wronged you receive justice."  
"Can someone get me a blanket or something?" I shouted to no one in particular, I just didn't feel like talking to that man. This was a lot like those client-lawyer meetings we had when he pretended to be my attorney.

"Either way, you should do your best at tomorrow's Carnival Corpse."  
"Carnival what?"  
"Watch and learn, young birdie."

Tamaki pulled up a screen that started playing a video with blaring heavy metal rock music in the background, defining just what the _Carnival Corpse_ was. It turns out the _real_ Deadman Wonderland was all about was watching people battle using something called a "Branch of Sin".

I could go on and on about the scenes that showed people being ripped apart at the waist, or having their heads skullstomped, or being lit on fire (yeah, seriously) but I'll just summarize it into two words: bloodpower deathmatch.


	6. Chapter 5

Is it my fault I didn't know how to control my Branch of Sin?

So what if I'd gotten a little out of control and accidentally wrecked the arena?  
It was clear that as long as one ferocious blood-fighter was brutalized to death, that's all that mattered.  
And it looked like I was going to be the one who ended up as nothing but a stain on the floor of the ring.

"Prevail, Mockingbird! Eat his face off!"

 _For your information, Mister Announcer, I like my face where it is._

Excited voices chimed in from all directions. "Finish him!"  
"Take him out!"  
"Kill the brat, for fuck's sake!"

The crowd was as inconsistent as ever. At this point, I was wondering where all my supporters had gone, because a little less than a minute ago, the entire audience wanted me to show Mockingbird who's boss.

You'd believe me if I said I was winning in a Carnival Corpse match against Mockingbird, right?  
Yeah, neither would I.  
But by some miracle, I had the disreputable King of Carrion on the floor, squirming for mercy.

Maybe it was karma deciding that I needed a break.  
 _If only._

Being a fast learner, I was getting the hang of all that mutant-blood-power stuff pretty quickly, and it seemed like I was actually going to win. That is, until I faltered for a moment and suddenly the hope of winning was cruelly ripped from my grasp in the span of 3 seconds.

Here's a play-by-play, showing how I went from Hero to Zero in no time:

Second One: I had Mockingbird on the floor in front of me, bloody palms aimed down at him and ready to destroy him. Bathing someone in a vat of acidic plasma requires a lot of blood, and even though it would've finished Mockingbird right on the spot, it would've thrown me right into hypovolemic shock afterward and I wasn't too sure I wanted that. So I took a moment to weigh the consequences in my head.

Second Two: Mockingbird moves fast. He noticed my split-second hesitation and used that small window to get himself out of that predicament. It was the perfect inopportunity to sweep my feet out from under me, sending me toppling to the floor spine-first.

Second Three: He shot to his feet, standing above me just as I stood above him seconds before. His blood started swirling around him in a raging storm of shifting shapes as he poised to strike.

There you have it. The Story of How I Ended Up at the Feet of an Angry, Homicidal Psycho: an autobiography. He was about to splatter me across the arena floor.

Images of a janitor mopping up my gory remains flashed through my mind.  
"Oh boy..." I mumbled under my breath.  
Well, this is it, I figured. If there was anything I needed to get off my chest, now was the time.

 _I would personally like to thank whatever strange force of nature that's been protecting me for this long; you're the real MVP. Even though I'm about to kick the bucket, all I regret is not being able to at least have my first kiss or tell my brother I'm sorry. But since I'll be dead in a few minutes, I'll get to see the rest of my family, so I guess that's kinda cool. Unless they went to heaven. That's going to be really awkward since I'm going to hell, and—_

Mockingbird reeled back, an enormous spear forming in his right hand. I could see my horrified reflection in his clear golden eyes. He looked like a kid in a candy store; meanwhile I looked like, well, a kid about to be impaled by a giant blood spear.

It looked like lights out for me.

But I'm getting way ahead of myself. Press the PAUSE button please.

•••

Flashback to the beginning of the match.

I was standing inside a dark cage in the center of a large white ring. Harsh rock music was blaring in my ears—the soundtrack of my death.  
Twenty feet away, I could see another cage with someone leaning against the bars like they were eager to get out. I was trying my hardest to suppress my anxiety, but my shaking limbs betrayed me.

In my head, I was wrapped up in a fantasy of what I thought the match would be like, when a shrill voice penetrated my thoughts, making me jump. "Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for another gloriously gruesome, splatter-filled episode of carnival corpse!" It was the annoying voice of an announcer, trying way too hard to sound thrilled.

Every nerve in my body pushed itself into overdrive. I could feel each bead of sweat dripping down my forehead, perspiring even though the cage was abnormally cold. My hands were clammy. My eyes were wide. I wasn't aware that I was holding my breath until my lungs started to burn from the lack of oxygen.

I've been anxious before, I've been frightened before, and I've been miserable before. But I've never been anxious, frightened, and miserable all at the same time. This? This was new.

"If you wanna watch Deadmen duke it out, we're the only game in town!" The announcer boasted. "The rules are simple: the fight is over when someone's incapacitated or dead. And now, here's your Deadmen!"

The cages swung open. Bright lights flashed on, blinding me for a moment. I was so out of it I was hearing voices.

"The most brutal, murderous birdie to ever enter or leave this cage; just say the word and he's boiling with blood lust—you all know his name! Here's Mockingbird!"

Emerging from the other cage was a figure dressed in all white. Now I was sure the voices weren't in my head, because I was certain my brain wouldn't conjure up people shouting, "Rip 'em to shreds, Mockingbird!"

There he was, Toto Sakigami, the Deadman I'd heard so much about from Tsunenaga. Apparently he was the top of the tier, the greatest of all time, the best of the best.  
And me, an inexperienced, wimpy little urchin—I had the honor of facing him in a fight-to-the-death.  
Isn't that wonderful?

He spun gracefully, as if bathing in the frenzied cheers that seemed to come from nowhere. As he made his way to the center of the ring, I noticed my adversary was a boy not too much older than I was. The oldest he could have been was eighteen, and—in the spirit of total honesty—he didn't look like much of a threat. Loose white clothing laced with red markings hung from his skinny limbs, and his feathery mint-colored hair almost covered a set of wild honey-colored eyes.

"And his opponent, our newest addition to the Deadman family, Heron!"

Whoa—what?  
That was _it_? Why didn't I get a hyped-up introduction, full of exhilaration and alliteration?  
I guess I had to work my way up to "exciting intro" status—if I survived, that is.

I stood in the back of my cage, supporting myself against the bars as my legs quivered like hell. I wanted to move, but my body subconsciously knew that if I left the cage it would be a decision I'd regret for the rest of my remarkably short life, so it decided it wanted to stay put.

"Aw, he's shy!" The announcer teased, inciting a round of cheers from the crowd. "Come on out, Heron. Mockingbird just wants to play!"

Suppressing all my fear, I walked out of the cage. Widely-spaced green bars lined the circular base of the arena, and as my eyes wandered all the way to the top, I saw that it was a gigantic birdcage. It was huge—at least sixty feet tall, with a massive overhead speaker disguised as a metal bird perched on a swing. Two lofty artificial trees stood on either side of the ring. I was half-expecting to see a live audience, but the only other person in sight was Mockingbird. Outside the birdcage, panels that looked like cards with cartooned faces on them were seemingly floating in air, some of them moving. They all had names on them, and I read a few: Popeye, Jack, King, Kazu.

I was trying to keep my calm, but the comments were making it a challenge. One spectator said, "This lopsided match isn't even worth my time." Another replied, "I know, right? Throwing a rookie in with Mockingbird? Why bother!"

Mockingbird took a second to study me, and I never felt more violated in my life. His face contorted into a wicked smile, he licked his lips, and I grimaced.  
I just thought, _Shit. He's smiling. He smiled at me. That means he's crazy. Why did I have to get thrown in with a psychopath?_

Mockingbird rubbed his hands together with anticipation. He laughed. "I hope this will be fun!"  
 _I hope you don't kill me.  
_ "Yeah, me too." I said, forcing a laugh that sounded a lot like a sob.

Everything went deadly silent for an instant, and the only thing to be heard was the voice coming from the bird. "Ready?" There was a long pause—for dramatic effect, obviously. I thought I'd die from the suspense alone. Then there was the sound of a buzzer and the announcer roared, _"Deadmen, bleed!"_

Mockingbird fired up his power immediately. He effortlessly slit his wrist, and red wisps floated out of the wound as if his blood had a mind of its own. I gagged at the scent.  
 _Smells like a Hell No._

My stomach clenched, and I forced myself not to vomit this early on. My legs turned to mush, my head felt light, my lungs seized up. Prickles of light popped up at the bottom of my eyes, but I fought the tug of unconsciousness. Passing out only moments after the match started—that would just be plain embarrassing.

I looked down at my hands. I understood a lot about this Deadman stuff—and by that, I mean sort of I understood three things. One of them was that your blood power is your friend. Even so, that still required me to cut myself, and I wasn't too thrilled about that.  
Mockingbird's blood started to take form, and that gave me the motivation I needed. If I didn't cut myself, Mockingbird would do it for me.

I had a fair amount of healing wounds from that time Warlord Makina—I mean, Warden Makina—tried to dismember me. Reopening an old wound had a lot more appeal than making a new one. There was one on the inside of my forearm, and that seemed perfect. So I dug my thumb into it until it drew blood, but all the blood did was drip down my arm.

Toto stood motionless with his twisted smile. "Well? Show me what you can do!"  
"I don't even know what I can do." I countered, staring hatefully at my bleeding arm. I held it up. "Come on," I encouraged it, "Do something before I'm, y'know, slaughtered."  
He sighed impatiently. "Guess I'll simply have to see for myself."

Laughing loudly, he spiraled over to me, his white clothing flapping. Before I could react, he managed to restrain me with both my hands behind my back. His pale fingers wandered gingerly to my chin, tilting my head to the side.  
I swear I shit myself right then and there.  
My thoughts started racing: _Oh well, I'm dead. I'll be the biggest disappointment Carnival Corpse has ever witnessed. Dead in less than a minute.  
_ _I'll have to wallow in eternal shame even after I die_.

But then something totally, erotically unexpected happened. I felt something warm on my neck, followed by a pinching feeling. It didn't take me long to realize that it was his mouth.

The announcer's tone was playful, "Mockingbird's nibbling on this young birdie already! Look, he's blushing!"

A discord of whoops and whistles came from the spectators, followed by remarks like "He likes it!" and "He's totally into it! What a pervert!"  
If I wasn't blushing before, I was now.

Shortly after, Mockingbird let me go and pushed me away violently. I turned to look at him, and he was holding his mouth with a sour face. He seemed just as confused as I was.

"What's this? It looks like Mockingbird doesn't have a taste for this Deadman's fresh blood!"

His boyish face screwed into a scowl, like he was in pain. Blood seeped through the fingers covering his mouth. He moved his hands away and shook the liquid off them. "That's new..."

Quickly regaining his composure, he held out his palm, blood spinning around it, shapes shifting indefinitely. "I don't feel anything." He clicked his tongue, and all of a sudden that flippant aura was gone. He looked sadistic. "What a bother."

He lunged at me again, and I barely dodged it, but not quick enough to evade his second attack. Tendrils of blood like long whips coiled around my limbs, rendering me immobile. Toto came at me again, putting his mouth on my shoulder. This time it was no benign little nibble. He bit into me like I was a fucking burger.

I yelled out in pain, but Toto did, too. His scarlet whips dropped me, and he backed off, holding his bloody mouth like my bodily fluid was toxic. I put my fingers to the bite mark on my shoulder, and they tingled when they made contact with the warm liquid. It didn't smell coppery like normal blood did; the scent was jarring, like blood and chemicals mixed together.

Toto quickly wiped my blood out of his mouth with his sleeve, glaring at me. He opened his hands again, blood churning around them and changing shapes: a blade, a web, a shield, thick strands like tentacles. He then grunted with frustration."Why can't I absorb your Branch of Sin? And why do you taste like that?" He stuck his tongue out and made a face like he'd just eaten something rotten. "What's _wrong_ with you?"

"For starters," I said casually, "I grew up in a broken home. My mother left before I was born. Daddy left before I was even conceived, so I had to live with my cousin, and in order to make ends meet he'd have to rent me out as a sex slave to all the neighbors. After a few years we even turned it into a business."

Toto wore an expression that made it clear he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

I groaned. "Does sarcasm not exist down here?"  
But there were a few chuckles from the cards surrounding the ring, so my humor wasn't totally wasted. The atmosphere seemed lighter, a bit less cutthroat.  
He grinned, but his eyes were cold. "This will be quick."

My heart sank. I tried to focus on getting my blood out of my body, before Mockingbird went all yakuza on me. Maybe I concentrated too hard, because the wounds in my arm and shoulder started spraying blood like a sprinkler. As soon as the fluid left my wounds it dispersed into a fine red mist, filling the air and making it unpleasant to breathe. My wounds burned like hell. "Oh shit. Ohhh shit." I chanted, capping my hands over my lesions in an attempt to stop the flow.

There were mixed reactions from the crowd. Curious Ooh's and disinterested scoffs filled the ring—there was even a giggle or two. I covered the bite mark in my neck with the hope that the pressure would stop the spurting, but no such luck.

"A little help here?"

Finally after 20 seconds of nonstop blood-spray, my wounds stopped spewing like a busted pipe.

Toto was watching curiously. When the vapor diffused into the air around him, his eyes went wide. He gagged, clutching his chest and stumbling around like he about to pass out. As a countermeasure, his blood shifted into a kind of solid permeable mask that spread over his mouth and nose.

He looked shaken and somehow even paler, if that was possible. He smiled, sending me a suggestive wink. "I guess this match won't be as boring as I thought."

Toto thrust himself into motion.

My limbs acted on their own, jerking me aside. A sharp projectile that was meant for my chest whizzed by in a blur of red. From the corner of my eye, I saw a crimson orb drift behind me.

 _Boom._

Something had knocked me off my feet. For a few seconds, my vision was nothing but a fuzzy field of white. I supported myself on my hands and knees, a warm liquid draining down the side of my face. My vision slowly returned, but the only thing filling my left ear was a blunt ringing.

 _My left ear._

Panicked, I slowly raised my hand to the side of my face, praying that when my fingers met my skin, the appendage would still be there.

 _Where's my ear. Where the hell is my ear?  
_ Gone. _  
He blasted it off. Fuck. It's—wait, it's still here._

The announcer's voice was a distorted croon coming from above, but I could make out Mockingbird's laugh. I looked up, only to see another red orb floating toward me. Not again. I rolled away from it, only to be thrown right back into it by the force of another explosion behind me.

"Mockingbird strikes first using Owl's Eyeball! That's gotta hurt!" The words sounded like they were coming from across a football field.

By this time I was flat on my back. Above me, red spheres were slowly drifting in my direction. My eyes darted to one above my head, and I crawled away just in time. The orb detonated, and I felt my hair ruffle from the force.  
Mockingbird turned the arena into a bloody minefield. Literally.

The orbs kept coming. Now that I was aware of what they could do, there was no way I was letting another of those things hit me.

 _Drop to the floor. Roll clear, stand. Just do your best to not get blown up._

"Mockingbird's got Heron on the run!"  
I evaded the exploding spheres like some sort of ballerina twirling across the ring, ignoring the annoyed comments from the viewers.  
"Counter!" A female voice yelled.  
"Come on newbie, fight back! I emptied my pockets to watch this match!"

 _Funny thing is, I don't know how to fight back._

The orbs were running out. Blast after blast, none of them hit me.  
There were only five left.  
Four.  
Three.  
Two.  
And then there was one.

Toto was having the time of his life. His maniacal laughter filled the arena. He seemed pretty happy for someone who barely hit me. I was standing there, panting from all the physical labor, and then it struck me why.  
He wasn't trying to.  
He was toying with me.

"Aren't you going to show me what else you can do?" Toto hummed.  
"I'm working my way up to it, okay?"

I looked at my bleeding arm. It was now or never. I concentrated harder this time, keeping the thought of my unavoidable impending doom at bay.

Then it happened. Instead of spraying out in the form of aerosoled poison mist, my blood started to take shape.  
Bingo.

"What's this?" The announcer's voice rose above the curious dissonance coming from the observers. "Is there more to Heron than meets the eye?"

Swirling into my palm was a mass not much bigger than a tennis ball. It bubbled noxiously, giving off an irritating scent. I played around with it a bit, squeezing it in my slightly-burning hand.  
It was soft but not squishy, thick enough to maintain structural integrity.

Reeling my hand back like a baseball-league pitcher, I hurled the ball at Mockingbird. He sidestepped it, and the mushy missile flew right past him. It hit one of the bars of the bird cage and stuck to it. From across the ring, there was an audible _hiss_ as the metal bar corroded. My opponent and I both watched in awe as the plasma ate straight through a bar that had to be at least three feet in diameter.

A hush fell over the crowd.

 _Huh, so that's my power._  
Aside from giving off a poisonous vapor, I got acidic blood missiles.  
Cool.

"Another unexpected attack from Heron! Looks like we've got a wild card on our hands!"

There was an excited outburst as the viewers erupted into a banter of comments about my ability.

Mockingbird turned to me with a grin that stretched from ear to ear. Without warning, he charged me like a bull. I sidestepped, whirled to face him. Toto launched a sharp multi-edged shard of blood at my head. I avoided one attack, only to be hit with another. A long, thin blade shot out from his palm, cutting through my shirt and grazing my chest.

A sharp sting followed, fading fast. In front of me, Toto was grinning wildly as he sent weapon after weapon in my direction.  
Just how many variations of Branch of Sin could this one guy have? It wasn't like my ability; I had two facets of the same power. This fucker had a million different powers and he was using them all simultaneously.

"Come on!" He jeered. "Hit me back!"

 _I would, if I wasn't too busy protecting myself._

Block. Shove away. Back off. Repeat.

Avoidance was working (for the most part), but it couldn't last forever. The crowd wanted action. They came for blood, and frankly, they were disappointed that no one's guts had been spilled yet. Minutes passed with no contact, and I felt pressure radiating from all sides. I could practically hear them chanting: _kill him, kill him, kill him._

Finally, I went on the offensive. Using the small window of time Mockingbird used to poise for his assault, I quickly shot another goopy corrosive ball at him. He saw it coming. (Un)fortunately, I'd already fired by the time he tried to dodge it. The blast glanced off his shoulder, and Toto grunted from discomfort as he backed away. Again, I lashed out, aiming for Mockingbird's gut. He proved equally effective at defense, and my shot splattered against a red hexagonal plate that acted like a piece of armor. My blood drained off, failing to corrode through his defense mechanism. I tried again, using both my newly-discovered techniques—pepper-spraying him in the face with a jet of poisonous mist and aiming a ball of acid down at his thigh—and this time I hit him.

I'd finally gotten one in.  
It felt like I'd just won the whole match.

Toto gasped, quickly retreating across the ring.  
He coated the wound in his leg with a red screen of blood. I could tell from his expression that all the fun and games were over. I gulped.  
He shot two long, thin cords at the large bird-speaker hanging in the center of the cage, and catapulted himself up there.

I felt light headed. The lights seemed to abruptly get 3000 times brighter. My surroundings started to warp, and for a few brief moments I forgot where I was. My clothes were damp with sweat, but I was freezing.  
I looked down at my hands. Pale. Clammy. Shaky.  
 _Oh shit._  
 _Kashia, you idiot._

It hadn't occurred to me that I'd been wasting blood all that time. I staggered, trying to keep my balance. Mockingbird's attacks were either small or thin, strategically conserving blood; meanwhile I'd been throwing it out a pint at a time. If I kept wasting my blood, I didn't have to worry about Mockingbird killing me. I would have already died from blood loss.

Toto's blood started whirling around him once more. He was going to fire from atop the bird. A long-range attack, and I was out in the open. Great.  
I composed myself and dashed for the tall synthetic tree behind me. Not a moment sooner did Mockingbird start attacking. Long red spikes embedded themselves at my heels with every step.

I made it to the tree, crouching behind it and taking a few moments to catch my breath. Big mistake. Without warning, the tree was turned to scrap metal, branches falling all around me. I peeked out from behind the stump, only to see that Toto was still perched on the speaker.

"How—"

Something grabbed my arm. It was a long red tendril, wrapped around my limb. I tried to pull away, but another one grabbed me by the neck. I was being dragged out into the center of the ring, literally kicking and screaming. More tentacle-like wisps surrounded me, whipping me like I was a circus animal being forced to entertain a sick, necrophilic audience.

The crowd was surely getting a kick out of it.

I managed to loosen one of my arms, and aimed for Toto. He was thirty feet in the air, and I doubted I could hit him. But I tried anyway.

I swear had been I aiming for him. The toxic blob was fired with too much enthusiasm, and instead of hitting the person riding the big metallic bird, it went ten feet higher and struck something else.  
In retrospect, I can see how it might've looked like I was actually pitching my projectile at one of the suspension cords for the bird swing. That was just an accident—the pink duck-looking thing with a speaker in its beak was simply collateral damage.

My blood burned through the chain suspending the swing like it was made of paper. The chain snapped, leaving the massive bird hanging by the other cord. The sound of groaning metal filled the arena. It wasn't long before the chain's weakest link shattered from the strain and sent the speaker falling to the ground below. Directly at me.

Before it hit the floor sixty feet below, I heard the announcer say one last thing, "Come on, we just fixed this thing—"

I barely avoided being crushed by a two-ton giant duck. I was hoping Toto was smashed somewhere under the debris, but looking around I saw that he was standing in the other tree on the opposite side of the floor.  
 _Dammit._

The boy moved damned fast. So fast that I nearly missed seeing it. Again, my body reacted on its own, moving without conscious thought. As Toto charged me, I slid to his right, only to slam into a rocket-like blast. Every bit of air was knocked out of me, and my vision faded as I felt my chest convulse from the agony of broken ribs.

He shot a crimson arrow at me and I dodged it, following up with a clean swipe to the jaw, leaving him stunned for a few seconds.  
A physical strike. He wasn't expecting that.

Expecting me to hit again, he threw up a block with his left hand. I feinted and hooked Mockingbird's left leg with my own, throwing him to the ground. He went down hard.

The spectators were basically rioting, surprised at my dexterity.  
"Would you look at that! The newbie is tougher than he looks."  
"So he's more than a clueless punk, after all."  
"Kid's got originality, I'll give him that."

Damn straight.  
I learned a thing or two from those times I was in a fight club.  
 _Ah, the good ol' days._

And that's how the match went, up until the point where I had Toto on the floor. Now press PLAY.

•••

Toto's blood spear hit my chest so hard it almost flushed my soul from my body. My own scream filled my ears, though it sounded far away. I fought insentience as best I could, but my eyelids felt like they weighed a ton. And the unbearable pain filling my whole body wasn't making it any easier. Craning my neck, I lifted my shirt to inspect the gore. I was expecting to see a gash the size of a tire, but there was no blood—nothing.  
As Mockingbird turned to leave, before his blood turned flaccid and slid back into his veins, I saw the Branch of Sin weapon that would have ended my life.

The spear was blunt-tipped.  
He could have killed me—he could have skewered me like a human shish kabob—but instead he speared my life.  
Get it? Speared my life?  
I'll stop, I promise.

As I raised my shirt all I saw was a purple bruise spanning over my entire rib cage, and a swelling welt the size of an apple.  
Internal bleeding.  
That was worse than external bleeding.

My eyelids were getting heavier, but I had a feeling if I closed my eyes I might never open them again. I could hear the slurred comments from the viewers as they paid tribute to Toto. He stood there triumphantly, his hands up, addressing his adoring crowd. Nobody paid me any attention. You know, aside from the team of G-Ward guards that rushed in, picked me up, and strapped me to a stretcher.

As I was being wheeled away, one of them noticed I was struggling to keep awake.  
"Do yourself a favor and die now, kid," he said.  
"Wha—" I was interrupted by my lungs suddenly failing me. I gasped for air before erupting into a coughing fit, spitting up blood everywhere.  
"If you keep this up, we'll have to ship you straight to the penalty round."  
"Penalty..." I started to say, but couldn't finish. I tried again: "Penalty—?" Silence.

The words died in my throat. My eyes slipped shut.  
Once again, I was out like a light.


End file.
